


let me hold you close

by icoulddothisallday



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Child with Disabilities, Chronic Illness, Epilepsy, Family Bonding, Hospitalization, Intellectual Disability, M/M, Mpreg, Omega Steve Rogers, Pack Family, Risk of Miscarriage/Perceived Miscarriage, Team as Family, male lactation (referenced), sick kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22825807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icoulddothisallday/pseuds/icoulddothisallday
Summary: When Steve went down with the Valkyrie, he'd only just started to wonder if he might be pregnant. But there's no way a baby could have survived 70 years in the ice. Right?(We've all seen the stories where Steve's pregnant when he comes out of the ice, and through the miracles of the serum the baby is Okay. This is the story where the baby is Not Okay, but somehow still Okay.)
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers, Steve Rogers & Avengers Team
Comments: 61
Kudos: 575





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a parent of a child with disabilities, nor do I have any close family members with disabilities, aside from my grandfather who passed when I was young. I do not have intellectual or health disabilities of my own. Most of what I'm drawing on here is from my work. I work as a special education teacher with students with significant intellectual disabilities. Many of my students have complex medical needs as well. Information and emotional portrayals in this fic are drawn from my experience with them and in working closely with their parents. 
> 
> I strongly believe that individuals with intellectual disabilities and complex medical needs are missing from representation most of the time. I love my students, and I'd like to see people like them in our media more often. So here's my piece. I don't claim to be an expert or to do it all perfectly, and if you feel as though I have misrepresented or created a narrative that is offensive please let me know. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

The helicarrier makes Steve’s stomach hurt, a deep cramping that he can’t quite ignore and sets his teeth on edge. Everything is shiny and bright and  _ big.  _ People speak sharply, using words he doesn’t understand. He feels like even the scents have changed — certainly more people are suppressed than before, so Steve doesn’t have the help of people’s scents to navigate the world. They’d given him suppressants when he woke up, and nothing more was said about his designation. 

He feels like he’s stepped into one of Bucky’s pulps. Steve had always preferred non-fiction. 

It’s been ten days since he woke up. Thirteen days since Bucky fell. 

He can’t quite breathe. 

*

The cramping hits hard and sharp during the fight, and Steve fights through it. He’s been fighting through pain his entire life. It’s not til later, when he’s stumbled into a half-destroyed restaurant with his new team that the pain becomes overwhelming. He feels wetness around his hole, he smells new blood. 

Stumbling and half gasping with pain, Steve takes himself to the bathroom. He sits on the john, staring at the red stain in his shorts. 

“Steve?” Banner calls from outside the stall. “Are you alright?”

Blankly, Steve says, “I think I’m having a miscarriage.” His ears are ringing and his mouth feels dry. He’d only started to wonder, a couple days before the train if maybe… but Erskine had said the serum could make him infertile, and he hadn’t wanted to hope. 

“Oh.  _ Oh. _ ” Because, right, nobody knows Captain America’s an omega. 

He’s rushed back to Stark’s tower, where he apparently has a fully functioning medical suite. Nurses and doctors are called in, including Tony’s Omega Specialist. They’re all overseen by Bruce, the only expert on the serum they could get on short notice. Steve’s hustled into a gown and a bed and told not to move too much. 

Steve sits still. He stares at the wall. He tries not to think. 

He thinks  _ this is all I have left, please, please I can’t lose this too  _ anyway. 

*

Outside the strangely large windows in the medical suite, Steve can see the twinkling lights of the city. He can see smoke, too, and the ominous shadows of buildings reduced to rubble. That’s familiar enough, though he’s never seen it from above like this, and never in his own city. 

Banner clears his throat softly, and Steve turns to look at him. The room’s been cleared of other medical professionals, leaving just him and Banner in the artificial light of the the too-large room. Steve takes a deep breath and doesn’t quite meet Banner’s eyes, bracing himself. 

“It’s gone, isn’t it. I lost it.” 

“No!” Banner exclaims. Steve looks straight at him, wide-eyed. Banner is staring back, face soft with compassion. “No, Steve. The fetus is — well. They’re still alive.”

_ Alive.  _ He hears the word with each beat of his heart, drumming a pattern into his ribs.  _ Alive.  _

“They’re okay?” Steve rasps out. “Really?”

Banner bites his lip, glancing away nervously and Steve’s fear rushes back. Coming closer, Banner fidgets nervously by Steve’s bedside, checking that all the monitors are firmly attached. 

“Dr. Banner.  _ Bruce.  _ Please, tell me.”

“We can’t tell anything yet,” Bruce says, words quick and quiet. “We don’t know, alright? But it’s...unlikely the fetus has come out of all this,” Banner gestures around, as if to indicate Steve waking up in the 21st Century and then fighting aliens, “completely unscathed. We don’t know what the effects will be. You said — probably eight weeks, right? Ten, now? That’s a critical time for development. The fetus is small and incredibly fragile. It’s amazing it even survived.”

Steve sits back, makes himself take a deep breath. “Alright,” he says. “What does that mean?”

Bruce hesitates again, then abruptly sits down on the edge of Steve’s bed. “I’m not good at this. There’s a reason I’m in  _ research _ . I could never talk to patients.”

“What about a friend?”

Looking up in apparent surprise, Bruce asks, “Is that what we are?”

“I’ve always found living through something unimaginable is a good way to bond,” Steve says drily, garnering a laugh from Bruce, which makes Steve smile. “So lay it on me, Doc,” Steve adds, steeling himself. 

“The child’s likely to have congenital abnormalities. It could be a whole range of things, but they’re unlikely to be typical. They’re going to be disabled, perhaps severely so.”

Steve takes a breath. And then another. And one more, just because. 

“You have options,” Bruce offers delicately. “I know you probably didn’t expect this.”

“No.” Steve says firmly. “No, Bruce. I want this baby. They’re all I have left. It doesn’t matter if they’re disabled or retarded —”

“Intellectually Disabled,” Bruce interrupts, voice firm. “We don’t use that word anymore.”

Steve pauses, nods, and fixes the new knowledge in his brain. Just another word among so many he’s had to replace.

“I’ll learn,” he says firmly. “And I’ll love them. I always wanted kids — Bucky and I planned. Well.” Steve rubs his faded mating mark. They’d always wanted lots of kids, even though they never thought it would be possible. Steve was too sick before, barely had heats at all. And afterwards, they weren’t sure he was able anymore. 

So to have this chance — it’s everything. 

“Alright, Steve,” Bruce says softly. “If that’s what you want, that’s what you’ll do.”

*

It’s a difficult pregnancy. Bruce puts Steve on bedrest. There’s a hard conversation where Bruce makes it clear that the baby’s survival is not assured at this point, that Steve could lose them at any time. So for the first time in his life, Steve follows doctor’s orders to the letter. He does nothing more strenuous than take a warm shower. 

His new team is always stopping by, though. They bring movies and snacks, books and board games they think he might like. They crack jokes, but never about the baby. Never about Steve being an Omega. Tony’s there almost every day, mostly tinkering with electronics in Steve’s rooms and making references Steve doesn’t understand, which usually leads to them watching a movie. 

Clint stops by every couple of days to play video games and sleep on Steve’s couch. Natasha drops in unexpectedly several times a week, often with some new food and an esoteric movie to watch. Bruce is there everyday for Steve’s check-up and then, usually, brunch. 

Very soon they all take on the feeling of  _ pack _ . Steve’s more grateful for them than he can say. 

Steve almost loses the baby two more times, despite all precautions. After the second time, he wakes in the medical suite to Natasha curled up in a chair next to him, and Tony sitting by the window working on something on his tablet and talking to himself. By the sounds of it, it’s a state of the art cradle. 

Steve turns on his side and cries. Later, he’ll blame the pregnancy hormones. 

*

In the second trimester, when Steve’s allowed up and about again, he goes down to see Peggy. Bruce tags along — just in case. 

He’s already showing — like most male omegas, he started showing early. Natasha and Pepper have had entirely too much fun buying him maternity clothes. Peggy cries when she sees him, and then spends a long time with her hand on his belly, not saying a word. 

*

Shortly after that, it becomes necessary to break the news to the press. Steve lets Tony do that. He stays in the tower and tries not to wonder what people are saying. After the serum, they’d erased any evidence of Omega Steve Barnes. The small, slight, beautiful Omega he’d been, mated early to his best friend, had been erased from history, replaced with Steve Rogers — Alpha. 

Even after Azzano, when meeting his mate again had sent Steve into the longest heat of his life, they’d somehow managed to keep the knowledge from spreading. The Howlies all knew, and Peggy, and Colonel Phillips, but no one else. 

Steve doesn’t envy Tony the task of explaining all that, but he’d trust no one else with it. Tony’s an Omega in the public eye, too, afterall. 

*

It’s not til the third trimester that he lets his teammates — his  _ pack _ — start buying the baby gifts. And with each thing they buy, he gets a little more worried. 

They ask about names, sometimes, but Steve says he hasn’t decided. 

The truth is, he refuses to think about it. He can’t name a child who might not live to be born. He doesn’t paint the nursery. He doesn’t unpack the furniture, or the clothes, or the toys. He leaves the light off, and covers the boxes with a drop cloth. Sometimes, late at night he goes in and sits in the corner, and looks at the looming silhouette of the boxes against the backdrop of city lights and cries, both hands cradling his stomach.

*

She comes three weeks early, in the early days of December. She’s in distress when she’s born. Not breathing right. A hole in her heart. Blue. 

*

Steve’s not allowed to touch her, but he thinks she’s beautiful. He thinks her tiny little fingernails are the most amazing thing he’s ever seen. He takes his sketchbook and sits by her incubator for hours upon hours, until Bruce tells him he needs to go eat. He draws picture after picture of her — of her tiny curled fists, and her pale, wispy hair. Of the monitors, and the tubes. 

In tiny letters, at the very bottom of each page he writes,  _ Esther Margaret Barnes.  _

*

She’s four days old when she has her first seizure. 

Steve’s never been more terrified in his life. 

*

Finally, after three gruelling weeks, Steve’s allowed to take her four floors up, to what counts as home these days. She’s tiny in his arms, pink and content. She’s still got the nasogastric tube, because they’re worried about swallowing, and she’s going to need oxygen at night, and to be monitored for further seizure activity. But for the moment she’s breathing, her heart is beating, she’s warm and present in his arms, and the miracle of that is more than Steve can comprehend most of the time. 

“This is your home,” he tells her, as he walks in the front door. There’s the smell of new paint and light filtering down the hallway. Taking a deep breath through an already tight throat, Steve walks down the hallway. 

The door to the nursery is open a jar. Slowly, he pushes it open. He takes in a slow, shuddering breath. 

The walls have been painted a soft blue, with light fluffy clouds patterned over top Tony’s state of the art cradle is set up in a corner. The furniture, including a changing table and rocking chair have been unboxed and set up. A plush rug covers the floor, her medical stuff is tucked up against the wall. A shelf carries all her toys. 

A tear slips down Steve’s cheek. “This is your bedroom,” he tells his daughter. “Your family got it ready for you. They love you a lot. But not as much as I do.”

He sinks down in the rocking chair and looks down at his daughter. Her face is scrunched up in sleep, the bow of her mouth relaxed and easy. She’s got the beginnings of dark curls sticking out from under her tiny pink hat. 

“Welcome home, Esther.”

*

“I don’t like to be handed things,” Tony gripes, but then takes Esther in his hands with utmost care, rocking slightly.

*

Bruce sits on the floor with Esther — Essie, they’ve all started to call her — her tiny fists wrapped around his fingers. He makes faces at her and she gurgles slightly, something that’s not really a smile yet on her face, but joy clear in her eyes. 

Steve sits on the couch, using the god awful pump to express his milk. He wishes he could feed her, he wants it so bad he can feel it in his bones. Using the pump sometimes makes him cry. He just wants to be able to cradle her close and breastfeed like the other omegas. Bruce caught him crying over the pump once, and now Bruce comes to visit every couple hours. He doesn’t say anything, but Steve knows it’s so he doesn’t have to be alone. 

*

Natasha comes over and holds her for hours at a time. They talk about nothing much at all, or sometimes watch movies, like they did when he was pregnant. And at the end, Steve hugs her and pretends not to notice how she shakes. 

*

“Woof,” Clint says seriously, holding a little stuffed dog in Essie’s face and shaking it slightly. It’s ears flop up and down. She stretches both arms up and waves them around, almost like she’s reaching for the puppy. 

She cries when Clint puts it down. Puppy’s never far from Essie, after that. 

*

She starts to miss milestones. Rolling over, sitting up. Crawling, walking, talking. 

Early Intervention specialists start to come to the tower a few times a week. They show him how to help her build strength in her tiny limbs, how to engage her in activities to help her reach milestones. 

She’s a month and a half when they place a g-tube in her tiny little stomach. 

*

The seizures don’t abate. After the one in January, where it goes and  _ goes  _ and  _ goes  _ and the Doctors have to stick her with needles almost as big as she is and put an IV in her tiny foot, Tony invents a special kind of seizure monitor. He calls it “smart,” which Steve guesses means that it learns. Sometimes it can warn them a seizure is coming. Steve has to carefully shave a patch of her hair at the back of her head so he can stick it on against her scalp. He hates doing it, but he hates the seizures more. 

*

“It might be early signs of asthma,” the doctor says, when Steve takes her down to the medical suite (now staffed with a rotating cast of the best pediatricians in the world, so that there’s someone there every day. Essie’s cardiologist and pediatric neurologist are always on call. Steve would feel bad about it, but Tony shells out a ridiculous amount of money for their services.) “But it’s hard to tell in infants. We’ll have to wait ‘til she’s older to know for sure. But chronic respiratory difficulties aren’t uncommon in premature infants. Let’s try some medications and see if we can’t get her breathing a little easier.”

*

There’s a basket on top of Steve’s fridge that didn’t used to be there. It’s got a neat line of medications, a jar of syringes, little gauze pads for cleaning the feeding tube. In the cabinet, he keeps the extra feeding bags, the gloves, and spare materials. 

He doesn’t think about it. It’s just what it is.

* 

Essie’s 8 months old when Steve carries her into the operating suite for open heart surgery, to correct the heart defect she was born with. He kisses her dark curls and hugs her close, breathing her in — the soft baby scent of her. She smells a little bit like Bucky, he thinks. The soft scent of old leather and the salt-scent of the sea. 

He lies her down on the gurney, tears on his face as she starts to cry and reach for him. 

“You’re okay, pup. It’s gonna be okay,” he tries to soothe. 

*

She’s a year and a half and starting to crawl. She follows him around their apartment and Steve will turn suddenly and gasp like he’s surprised to find her there and then she sits on her bottom and giggles and giggles. She can play that game all day. 

*

“Mama!” 

Everything freezes. The whole world goes still. He’s surrounded by his pack for Saturday morning brunch. Essie’s sitting in her high chair reaching out to him, face stubborn and ready to cry. 

“Mama!” she says again. Steve sweeps her up into his arms, pressing kisses all over his face. 

She’s two and a half, and he’s been waiting  _ so long _ to hear those simple syllables. There’s been speech therapy, and occupational therapy, and physical therapy. There’s been play specialists and early interventionists. There’s been long nights in the hospitals through infections and scans and suregeries and complications. 

Some days Steve is so tired he honestly doesn’t know how he’d manage if he didn’t have his pack, who all love Essie so goddamn much. And he’d love her if she never said anything, if she never walked, if she needed a ventilator, or constant nursing, or any of the other things the doctors said might come to pass. 

But she’s here, and she’s winding her arms around his neck, and she’s saying, “Mama.”

Steve only wishes Bucky were there to see it. 


	2. Chapter 2

Bucky Barnes comes back to himself in a defunct S.H.I.E.L.D bunker under the supervision of Natasha Romanoff, Maria Hill, a bunch of techs whose names he can never remember, a whole host of specialists, and some guy everyone calls “Doctor Strange.” 

It’s several months of anger and confusion and piecing together who he was before it all — before the fall and HYDRA and cryo and the chair. They tell him he might not ever get it all back, but Bucky thinks he remembers the things that matter most. 

Steve. His sweet omega. His mate. 

Who hasn’t been to see him even once. 

Natasha smells like him, sometimes, when she comes in. So much like him that Bucky thinks she must have spent the night in his home, or some place else that Steve regularly scent-marks. The honey scent of bread and apple cake and lye soap hangs on her clothes and in her hair. For a long time, Bucky doesn’t ask. Maybe they think it won’t be safe — there’d been a kill order on Captain America, but he hadn’t been in DC when everything went down. 

It was Natasha Bucky had almost beaten to death, and they seemed to think she was safe enough with him. And Bucky missed Steve with his whole goddamn soul, once everything came back, once he was himself again. And the doctors had been talking about releasing him soon, letting him back out into the world so he could have a life again. 

The only life Bucky wants has Steve in it. 

“Natasha?” he asks one day, while they’re watching another movie Natasha insists he needs to see to understand pop-culture. Bucky’s not sure what they’re watching or what’s going on, his brain too much a whirlwind to process it. “Why hasn’t Steve been to see me?” 

Natasha stays perfectly relaxed, curled up on the couch. 

“We’ve been waiting for you to ask — for you to be ready.”

“And Steve was okay with that?” Bucky asks skeptically, thinking of the omega who had rushed off to Austria on the slightest chance he might be able to save Bucky. 

Natasha turns to him, eyes serious. “Steve’s probably not quite the man you knew. A lot has changed for him.”

“Well, yeah, I get that —” Bucky says. 

“No,” she interrupts. “I don’t think you do. But it’s not my story to tell. And if you’re ready to see Steve, then I’ll call and let him know. But James, you have to promise me something.”

“Of course.” Bucky can feel his brows folding quizzically as confusion and no bit of concern rushes through him.

“Listen, and be kind.”

Bucky frowns harder, wondering what could be going on that she feels she needs him to remind him of those fundamentals. “I will be,” he tells her all the same. 

“Alright. I’ll give him a call.”

*

It’s another week before Steve can make the trip, for some reason. It is a sunny August day in the Catskills, so Bucky’s out in the little garden, sitting on a bench and soaking up the sunshine while intermittently trying to read. 

He hears Steve before anything else — the deep rumble of his voice inside, and the lighter lilt of Natasha’s not-quite faded Russian accent that she lets out when she really trusts someone. 

Bucky puts his book down and looks up at the door — heavy, reinforced steel, because for all the gorgeous, idealistic surroundings, it’s still a secure facility. 

It squeals open and Steve steps into the sunlight. Bucky finds himself standing a moment later. Steve’s just as beautiful as he remembers, hair glowing golden in the sun and eyes blue as the sky above. 

“Bucky,” Steve whispers, and then they’re stumbling together and hugging. Bucky noses at Steve’s mating bite, inhaling deeply. He goes very, very still and pulls back slightly. 

“Steve, what —” 

Because Steve smells like he’s  _ pupped _ , his scent slightly over-layed by a milky sweetness and he’s been recently scent-marked by the sweet, soft scent of a young pup. But no alpha, Bucky tries to reassure himself. 

Steve’s lips turn down slightly and a deep groove settles between his brows. “It’s — it’s a bit of a story.” 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Bucky says firmly. 

Nodding slowly, Steve says, “Alright. Let’s sit down.”

So they do, on the same bench Bucky had just abandoned. Natasha has disappeared, but Bucky knows she must be close by. They sit side by side, knees grazing each other when they shift weight slightly. Steve doesn’t talk for a few moments, first studying Bucky’s face, then turning his gaze to the sky. 

Bucky tries to be patient, even as a hundred different scenarios run through his head — Steve met someone else, settled down, had a baby. Steve had a one night stand and got pregnant. Steve got a heat partner, got pregnant, fell in love with the heat partner.

“Do you remember,” Steve’s voice is soft, but it shuts Bucky’s racing thoughts down. “Two months before...the train. There was that house, in Switzerland? I’d missed a couple doses of my suppressants, and with the serum that was enough. So we stayed for my heat, and the Howlies stood guard and —”

“I remember,” Bucky says. Because how could he forget? The way Steve had begged for Bucky to touch him, the way he smelled and  _ tasted _ . Bucky’d used the last of his condom ration on his gun, they hadn’t used any. They’d knotted for almost an hour. 

“I was pregnant when I went into the ice,” Steve says. Bucky gasps, but doesn’t dare hope — a baby couldn’t have survived that, could they have? “I didn’t realize until after I woke up. I — I started to bleed. I thought I was going to miscarry. I was on bedrest for the first two trimesters. Doctors monitoring me round the clock. My team was there, they were my  _ pack  _ — otherwise I don’t know if...well.”

Pack or mate support is critical for pregnancies, especially difficult ones. Bucky knows that. 

“They told me, if she survived, she wouldn’t be — there’d be complications. That she’d probably be disabled. They couldn’t tell me how much.” Steve’s meeting his eyes now, a familiar sort of look — challenging, and protective. Bucky’s never been on this side of it. 

He thinks he understands why, though. 

“She was born December 9th. She was too early. She wasn’t well. We almost lost her so many times.” Steve takes a shuddery breath. Bucky can’t quite breathe himself, and his eyes are burning. 

“But you didn’t,” Bucky says desperately. “Please, Steve, please say you didn’t lose her.”

“No. She’s a fighter. She made her way back to us every time.”

“ _ Baruch hashem, _ ” Bucky gasps, tears spilling onto his cheeks. “What’s her name?”

“Esther,” Steve says softly, and a deep, raw sob breaks out of Bucky’s chest. His sister. She’d been stillborn. “Esther Margaret Barnes. We all call her Essie.”

“Can I see — do you have a picture, God Steve, can I meet her, when can I see her —  _ please _ .” 

Steve raises a quelling hand. “Wait, wait Buck. I need to finish —” Bucky nods urgently, egging Steve on, “She didn’t — everything that happened. It had an effect. She has disabilities. She’s not like a typical child.”

Bucky takes a deep shuddery breath, and wipes his cheeks. “Alright, alright Steve. Tell me what she’s like.”

Steve meets his eyes and studies him for a long time, something serious and dangerous and protective in his gaze, and there’s pain too, so much pain, pain Bucky doesn’t know and hasn’t held his hand through, and that hurts more than anything. 

“She’s happy,” Steve says first. “And so funny. Just always making people laugh. She loves to play, and dance, and listen to music. She likes to be read to, and to go to the library. She likes to go anywhere, really, but especially the zoo. She loves animals.”

“She sounds wonderful,” Bucky says tentatively. 

“She is,” Steve says strongly. He pauses again, fiddles with the line of his jeans. “She’s — she has an intellectual disability. We would have called her….feeble-minded, or idiot or — or  _ retarded _ , before. But intellectual disability is what we use now.”

Bucky’s chest is tight. He...he doesn’t really understand what that means. 

“She has some medical issues,” Steve pushes on. “And delays in her development.”

“Alright,” Bucky says, then shakes his head slightly, trying to clear it. “I don’t — I don’t really understand what that means, Steve. I’m trying to understand, but all that — it doesn’t mean anything to me.” 

Steve nods shakily, wipes his hands on his pants, licks his lips, and then says, “Yeah, okay. I guess it doesn’t really mean anything. I guess — she’s four now. She only says a couple words. She still needs help going up and down the stairs, and isn’t very coordinated. She’s not toilet trained, yet. She’s behind, academically. She can count to 3 now, and she can sing most of the alphabet, but. She’s going to have a hard time learning new skills. She’s in a special classroom, at school, to help her learn the things she needs. She’s — she’s probably always going to need help. It’s hard to know yet, when she’s so little.” 

Bucky tries to wrap his mind around all that. It’s — it’s a lot, and he guesses he understands why they waited til he asked to have Steve visit, if this was going to be the conversation they needed to have. It’s a lot — a lot of new worries, new fears, new challenges dumped into his lap all at once. 

But. But she’s his  _ baby _ . Steve and he had never known if they were going to be able to have kids, even after the serum. They’d always talked about adoption, if they couldn’t. But to have their own — a little girl who comes from the both of them. That was always the dream. 

“Do you have pictures?” he asks again. 

Steve studies him for a long moment, and then nods, pulling out his phone. She’s right there, on the lockscreen — nose scrunched up and smiling. She’s got Bucky’s dark curls, tied up into two little pigtails, and blue eyes that could come from either of them. Rosie cheeks and dimples frame her smile. 

“She’s beautiful,” Bucky whispers, as if saying it too loud will break the spell he’s under — the spell of falling in love with his daughter. God, his  _ daughter.  _

“Yeah,” Steve agrees, navigating to his photos. “She is.”

They spend almost a half hour looking at photos. It’s hard. Steve’s pretty good at capturing photos of her — Esther — when she’s smiling. But there’s also plenty of photos that make it clear enough that she’s  _ different _ . Her expressions are not quite what Bucky would expect from a kid that age. There are pictures of the tiny little braces on her legs, sticking out from underneath shorts. Videos of her walking unsteadily.

“I want to meet her,” Bucky says. “Please, Steve. I want to meet her, I want to be her dad.”

“It’s going to be hard for her to understand,” Steve says. “She’ll like you right away — she likes everyone right away. But she won’t  _ understand.  _ Not for a while.”

“That’s alright,” Bucky assures immediately, even though it’s hard to imagine. He’s already missed so much time. 

“Natasha and I, we’ve been talking. I hope you don’t mind, they considered me your healthcare proxy when they didn’t think you could make decisions yet, so they kept me up to date.”

“Of course I don’t mind!” Bucky assures, taking Steve’s hand and squeezing it tightly. Steve squeezes back. 

“I know you’ll be released soon,” Steve says. “And if you want, Tony has said you can come live in the tower. But — not with us, yet. She needs to get to know you. I need her to understand as much as she can before you move in. I mean, assuming you even want too, I’m not saying I’m expecting — it’s been a long time.”

Bucky cups Steve’s cheek with his flesh hand. “Sweetheart,” he says soft and low. “You’re my mate, my beautiful, precious mate. And you’ve given me a beautiful, wonderful child. Of course I want to be with you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, however long that might be. I love you.” 

“I love you too.”

And then Bucky kisses him, deeply and warmly, trying to pour all the love they’ve missed out on for the last 70 years into the kiss. He doesn’t quite succeed, he thinks, but that’s alright, he’s going to have a long time to make up for lost time. 

***

The day Bucky moves into the tower, his heart is racing and he can’t quite breathe. He uses the breathing exercises his therapist showed him, but they don’t seem to make much of a difference. He’s meeting his daughter today, he doesn’t think there’s anything in the world that could make him less anxious. 

The first step, of course, is to get all his stuff stowed in his new digs. Tony Stark’s given him his own floor, until Steve gives the a-okay for Bucky to move in with him and Esther. Bucky doesn’t have much to his name, not that he ever really did. A duffel of clothes, and a box of books are all that he owns. He sets them down in the apartment he’s been giving, barely taking the time to be awed at the opulent surroundings, before asking if he can go see Steve and Esther. 

Natasha, who had escorted him from the bunker in the Catskills, stays by his side as they get into the elevator and head up to the common floor. 

“What should I do? What should I say?” he asks her desperately. 

She turns to look at him, smiles a little. “Don’t worry so much, James. Essie’s pretty easy to win over.”

Bucky’s not sure what he was expecting from a common area designed by Tony Stark, but the kitchen with family style dining table and living room scattered with toys definitely wasn’t it. 

Steve’s sitting cross-legged on the rug, a little girl in his lap. They’re building a tower out of large blocks. They both look up when the elevator doors open and the little girl is up and tottering towards them in an instant. Like in the videos Bucky saw, she teeters unsteadily from side to side. 

She squeals upon approaching, reaching up to Nat, who swings her up with a big smile. “Hello, Essie,” she says, pressing a kiss to her cheek. 

“Nana!” Essie exclaims and smacks a kiss against Natasha’s cheek. 

“Are you having a good day with your mama?” Nat asks, seating Essie on her hip and turning to look at Steve. Steve smiles, coming over. In his hand he’s got a tablet in a bright green case. 

“Mama,” Essie agrees, and then makes a motion with her hands, raising them in the air and twisting them side to side with a couple fingers loose. 

“Are you playing with mama?” 

Essie nods her head, making the motion again and babbling a little. 

“Essie, can you say hi to Bucky?” Steve interrupts. “Bucky is mama’s friend. See, friend.” And Steve gives him a big hug, scenting quickly before pulling back. 

“Hi hi hi,” Essie says, waving her hand loosely. She babbles to them again, using the same hand motion from before, and Steve grins, big and bright. 

“Sure, Bucky can come play with us, baby. Good asking.” Steve reaches out for her and she easily slides into his arms. 

“Nana,” she says insistently. “Nana.”

“Auntie can play too,” Steve agrees easily. 

A little blankly, Bucky follows them over to the rug. He knew, of course, that she only had a couple words, but Steve and Nat seem to understand her so easily. It’ll come with times, he guesses, but it’s hard not to be able to understand. And she’s — she’s not like other kids. Bucky knew that too, but abstractly. He remembers his sisters at that age, how much they’d talked, and how they’d played, and run all over the house driving him crazy. 

“Here baby,” Steve says, sitting down with her in his lap again. “Use your talker and ask Bucky to play.”

Steve hands her the tablet, which he now sees has several brightly colored pictures on the screen. Essie scans it and then presses two pictures. A surprisingly natural voice says, “Friend play.” Then she looks up at him smiling, and rubbing a hand over her chest. 

“Friend play, please,” Steve says. “That’s the sign for please.”

“I would love to play,” Bucky says, looking right at her and smiling. She smiles and hands him a block. 

*

It’s a hard day. A really, really hard day. 

The playing ends abruptly when Essie gets frustrated about something that she can’t communicate, which leads to crying and hitting Steve with a block. Steve’s so patient, just keeps holding out her ‘talker’ and trying to figure out what’s wrong. 

But they never do find out exactly what set her off, the upset just weans off and then she’s happy again. Around noon, they all troop into the kitchen. Steve sets Essie down in a special seat, and straps her in carefully, while Natasha makes them sandwiches. Bucky sits there, not sure what to do or say, not sure how to engage with his daughter now that there’s no toys involved. 

The grown ups get sandwiches, but Essie gets soft, pureed food, which Natasha helps her eat, Natasha’s hand wrapped over Essie’s on the spoon. 

“She’s still mostly tube fed,” Steve says softly, catching Bucky watching. “She can only do soft foods like that. And thickened liquids, because she’s at risk of aspirating.”

Bucky turns his stare to Steve. Frustrated, he says, “I don’t know what any of that  _ means,  _ Steve.”

“Oh,” Steve says. “Um, well, let’s talk about it all later? I don’t like to talk about her like she’s not there, y’know. She’s different, but she knows when we’re talking about her. Alright?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, rubbing his forehead and feeling a little in over his head. “Yeah, of course.”

Other people start arriving then, so the conversation stops. Bu Bucky gets to meet Steve’s pack, at least. It’s nice, but it also makes him feel terribly lonely. There’s Tony Stark, who talks a mile a minute, and looks at Essie like he’s completely besotted, and is six months pregnant himself. 

“All Steve’s fault,” Tony claims. “If his offspring weren’t so damn cute, I’d never have wanted my own.” 

Steve rolls his eyes, but there’s real affection there. 

Then there’s Bruce Banner, a mild-mannered alpha who scent-marks Steve so casually, Bucky almost doesn’t notice at first. Then he takes over for Natasha, helping Essie eat, and Bucky can’t help but bristle a little possessively. 

Pepper Potts is the next to arrive, wearing a silk blouse and pants probably worth more than a year’s worth of rent back in the day. She’s an alpha, too, with a strong, dominant scent. She spends almost all of her (very brief) lunch break playing peek-a-boo with Essie and making her crow with laughter. It makes him more jealous than it should. 

After lunch, Steve disappears with Essie to put her down for a nap, leaving Bucky with the room full of relative strangers. While they all do their best to include him, they’ve clearly got a well-worn dynamic between them and Bucky doesn’t quite fit. He tries to keep up, but it’s all in-jokes and references, and he ends up sitting on the couch, half reading his book and half drinking in the remaining scent of Steve and Essie. 

It doesn’t really get any easier when they get back, two hours later. Essie’s had a seizure, Steve reports with an mildly anxious twist to his face, but otherwise nonchalant. The others are equally relaxed, like this is a regular occurrence, and not a serious medical event. 

_ Maybe,  _ a small part of Bucky’s panicking brain suggests,  _ this is a regular occurrence for Essie.  _

She’s tired and grumpy, and all she wants to do is curl up in Steve’s lap and be read to, which means Bucky can’t drag Steve off and demand answers  _ right that second.  _

Essie perks up eventually, and Steve suggests they go down to the gym to play, which is met with squeals of excitement. Bucky can see why, when they get downstairs — attached to the gym, with its regular assortment of gym equipment and a boxing ring, there’s a small room full of large foam structures, large balls, and several different kinds of swings. 

Steve and Bucky follow Essie around the room, but it’s pretty safe, and she scampers around, asking both of them for help to climb over things, and to get in the swing, which makes Bucky feel very much a part of their little family. 

When she starts to lag, Steve convinces her it’s time to go back upstairs. He takes her hand to guide her out to the elevator. She reaches out her other hand to Bucky, smiling cheerfully, dimples digging into her cheeks. Bucky takes her tiny hand carefully with his flesh hand and smiles all the way up to Steve’s floor. 

*

“Here,” Steve says over dinner. It’s just the three of them this time. Essie’s got a similiar chair as upstairs, and has a little bowl of yogurt in front of her for dinner. “You help her while I finish our’s.” 

Steve takes Bucky’s hand and gently tucks it around Essie’s, wrapping their combined grip around a small plastic spoon. “Go slow,” he instructs, “And only let her get a little bit on the spoon each time. She needs to take a break between each bite.”

Bucky feels him start to sweat with nerves, but gamely he follows Steve’s instructions. Essie doesn’t seem to mind that it’s him helping, but Bucky’s determined not to fuck anything up. He can feel Steve watching him and he tries not to let it bother him. Just mom-behavior, Bucky figures, the way any omega is with their pup. And given all of Essie’s difficulties, Steve’s scrutiny is only to be expected. 

During one of their little breaks from yogurt, Bucky glances up at Steve. Steve’s pouring some apple juice into a purple plastic cup, then he pours some powder into it and mixes, checking the texture as he does.  _ Thickened liquids _ , Bucky remembers. He frowns a little, and promises himself he’ll ask his questions later. 

Steve makes some kind of stir-fry for them — which is delicious. Steve always handled all the cooking, before — and they sit together and eat, taking turns helping Essie, and it all feels very domestic. Everything Bucky dreamed of, honestly. 

“Essie, time for a bath,” Steve says. He folds his hands into one sign. “What time is it?” Steve hands Essie her talker, and opens to a new page of symbols. She scans for a minute, but then looks away, distracted by something else. Steve doesn’t push. Instead, he finds the symbol on the device and presses it. “Bath,” it says in a little girl voice. 

“Buck, you wanna help?” Steve asks, starting to unclip Essie from her chair. Bucky looks up, surprised, but nods immediately. He wants to do as much as Steve and Essie will let him. 

Following them into the large bathroom, Bucky asks, “What do you want me to do?”

“Will you hold her for a minute while I run the water?” Steve asks, leaning towards him, starting to unwind Essie’s arm from his neck. 

“Of course,” Bucky says breathlessly and all of a sudden he has his daughter in his arms for the first time. She’s warm and so, so small. Bucky can’t help but snuffle at her hair gently, taking in the sweet, milky scent of a young pup. She smiles up at him and pats at his chin a little awkwardly. 

“Buhbuhbuh,” she babbles. 

Steve turns from the tub with a big, wondering grin on his face. “That’s right, baby. That’s Bucky.”

“Buhbuh,” she agrees with another dimply smile.

“Is she really saying my name?” Bucky asks helplessly. 

Steve shrugs with another grin, “Hard to know precisely. But y’know, people talk a lot about ‘assumed competence.’ It doesn’t hurt her to assume she’s trying to meaningfully communicate when she makes any sounds. I might not always get it right, but it’s better than assuming it doesn’t mean anything, y’know? And she loves people, loves to make new friends. Soon she’ll be asking to have you on her talker, you’ll see.” 

“Yeah?” Bucky asks wonderingly, looking down at the miracle of a child in his arms. God, everything it took for them all to be standing in this room together, to have a chance to be a family, to be  _ together _ , however that looks...they’re goddamn lucky. 

Steve smiles, soft and gentle, like he knows exactly what Bucky’s feeling. “Yeah.” 

He reaches out for Essie and places her gently on the floor. “Bucky,” he says softly as he starts to undo her pigtails. “Essie had heart surgery when she was real little. She’s got a scar on her chest. And she’s got a small button on her stomach, which is how she gets a lot of her nutrition. I don’t want you to be surprised, alright?”

Snapped out of the moment, Bucky nods quickly. It’s hard to know that his daughter’s been through so much when he wasn’t there to help her and Steve. And it’s harder still to understand so little of what she still needs. But it’s just the first day, Bucky reminds himself, and he’s got time to figure it out, to learn everything he needs to know. 

Steve smiles reassuringly up at him, and then gently tugs Essie’s shirt up. Bucky braces himself.

It’s a big scar, but it’s relatively faint, clearly having healed well. The small plastic button on her belly is in some ways much scarier. They didn’t have anything like that when they were young. Bucky, himself, was tubefed when he was with Hydra, but those memories are scary and traumatic and not anything he wants to associate with his young daughter. 

“Baby, can you show Bucky your g-tube?” Steve asks, keeping a careful eye on Bucky. She smiles and claps her hands, then points to the button. “Good job, baby. What do you use your g-tube for?”

She pinches her fingers together loosely and brings them to her mouth, “Eee, eee,” she tells him. 

“You use it to eat?” Bucky asks softly. She dimples at him, and signs it again. 

“Good job, you explained to Bucky.” 

“Buhbuh,” she agrees, smiling bigger. Bucky’s heart melts a little and he needs to lean back against the counter and just take a minute to count his goddamn blessings. 

Steve does most of the washing. There’s something about watching his omega gently wash their daughter that sends Bucky’s Alpha instincts through the roof, and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s making a deep Alpha purr in his chest. He expects Steve to reprimand him for it, but Steve just glances over his shoulder and smiles. Bucky smiles back. 

*

After bath, it’s bedtime. That’s when it gets complicated again. Because next to Essie’s bed is what looks like an IV pole. And after Steve’s dressed her in soft, cozy pajamas printed with dinosaurs, placed a soft, cotton pad around her g-tube, and gets her on to the bed, he starts collecting materials. 

Bags, and cans of formula, and little syringes which he fills with medication. He does it so nonchalantly, like it’s nothing, like this is just their life, and Bucky guesses that it is. That this is just normal for Steve and Essie. The thought hurts his heart, a little. 

All the same, he watches carefully. As soon as it feels right, he’ll insist that Steve show him how to do all this — every single part of caring for Essie, from changing her diaper to measuring out meds to attaching the little tubes to her g-tube button. All of it. He’s her dad, he’s going to do every part he can to help. 

After the tubes are all hooked up, and Steve’s pressed a bunch of buttons on the IV pump, he gently coaxes Essie into turning onto her side. She whines a little as he pulls a flesh-colored patch — which Bucky hadn’t even noticed until then — from behind her ear. It’s thick and flexible, with a pattern of metal dots on the inside. From a drawer in a plastic cart by her bed, Steve pulls another one — this one bright purple — and carefully positions it. 

When he catches Bucky watching, Steve explains in a soft voice, “Tony designed this for us. He’s actually patented it now, sells it for like, a dollar per pack of 300. It’s a seizure monitor. Hooks up with my phone and my watch, lets me know when she’s having a seizure or about to have one. It’s saved her life more than once.”

Bucky can’t breathe for a minute after that particular bomb. He just stares at the purple patch behind her ear.  _ What if it falls off,  _ he starts to think,  _ what if it malfunctions.  _ What if they don’t know, and she needs them, and they aren’t there. 

Bucky barely hears a word as Steve reads to Essie. He is reassured to see Steve set up a video monitor and leave enough of a light on that the camera will be able to pick up any changes. Steve kisses her goodnight and scent marks her before tucking her in. 

“C’mon, Bucky,” Steve murmurs, putting a hand on his shoulder and guiding him out of her bedroom. “I know you have questions. I’ll get us a beer, and you can ask whatever you need.”

*

It’s a long conversation. It includes a lot of words that Bucky doesn’t understand, but that Steve explains again and again, patiently, easily, like he’s used to this. Bucky never imagined that conversations about epilepsy, and speech delays, and heart defects, and aspiration, and feeding clinics, and early intervention would be a part of his parenting experience. He’s grateful for the calm, easy way Steve talks about it, the careful way he explains things. 

“She’s a complicated kid, medically,” Steve finishes softly, curled up against Bucky. “But in the ways that matter most, she’s not complicated at all. She’s funny and loving and playful. She’s adored, and she’s safe. She has a pack that cares for her more than anything else in the world and will go to any length to keep her safe. She brings happiness and joy into our lives, and that’s what really matters, at the end of the day.”

Bucky nods, turning his head and burying his nose in Steve’s hair, inhaling deeply. 

In a minute, he’ll get up and go sit with her. In a minute, he’ll ask Steve if he can stay the night. 

But for right now, he just presses close and is grateful for this beautiful, wonderful man, and their perfect, precious daughter. 

In the future there will be challenges. There will be hard conversations about her future. There will be hospital stays and health complications. There will be setbacks, and disappointments. There will be frustrating days where all Bucky wants to do is scream and cry and rage. There will be days he threatens to walk out on Steve. He’s not proud of those days. 

And then there will be the days where she does something new and unexpected — when she counts to ten, and reads her first word, and stops at a crosswalk without anyone telling her too. There will be the days where she puts together brand new sentences on her talker to tell them something they never would have known, like “I want to play TV games.” 

There will be a bat mitzvah, and her first invitation to a birthday party, and her first day of high school. 

There will be siblings. 

And there will be the perfect, incandescent day when she calls Bucky, “Daddy” for the very first time. 

But for right now, Bucky is just grateful for every little thing that got them to this point, for everything that led to him being here, in the same space and time as his mate, and his daughter, and the pack they’ve made for themselves. He’s grateful for every doctor and every tiny miracle that allowed his daughter to live, and thrive. So he holds Steve close, and thinks only of tomorrow. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, commenting, and kudoing! 
> 
> A couple notes: 
> 
> *An undeniable fault of this story is that it's from the POV of the parents/caregivers, not the individual with disabilities. We need infinitely more of those stories, but it's not this one. The parents/caregivers' narratives are NOT what is most important in looking at the experience of people with disabilities, however they are important as a way of experiencing the world. 
> 
> *I'm not endorsing monitoring your kids past a certain age. In this case, Essie is still very young and has significant health needs which need to be monitored, hence the video monitoring over night. 
> 
> *Bucky is doing his best, but has a lot dropped on his plate all at once. I'm not endorsing everything he thinks or says, just trying to provide realism. 
> 
> *Tony's seizure monitor is obviously fictional. I desperately wish it wasn't. Epilepsy can be scary, and it's something I deal with on a daily basis with my students.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter two will be up sometime this weekend.:)


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